


Let It Burn

by Rose_in_crayons



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Tragedy, Fluff and Angst, Klance Week, Klangst Week 2018, M/M, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 09:29:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15312528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rose_in_crayons/pseuds/Rose_in_crayons
Summary: Keith didn’t know when he’d first seen the bright flashing lights, or heard the wailing, discordant sirens. All he knew was that his home- the home he’d built with Lance- had been reduced to a blazing inferno before his very eyes.





	Let It Burn

Fire.

It’s a beautiful yet destructive thing.

An element that helped to build mass civilizations, but could, in turn, burn those same settlements to the ground. It’s bright, passionate, vivacious- yet it saps these same qualities from any and all life it touches.

Unfortunately for Keith Kogane, he would soon learn this- again- in the hardest way he could ever possibly imagine.

He’d been walking back home when he’d sensed something was terribly amiss.

He didn’t know when he’d first seen the bright flashing lights, or heard the wailing, discordant sirens. All he knew was that his home- the home he’d built with Lance, _their_ home- had been reduced to a blazing inferno before his very eyes.

Here, in the months since he and Lance had arrived back on earth, they had lived together, laughed together, cried together, fought together, _loved together_ \- and now all of it was burning.

He could faintly acknowledge the firefighters talking to him, urging him to back away, but all he registered it as was a faint buzzing in his ears.

 _Lance_.

He was in there- he just knew it. Why else would the firefighters be telling him to back away from the blaze? He wouldn’t run in there unless he had a reason.

But now he had a damn good one.

He sprinted toward the fire-ravaged house, toward the charred door, the firefighters moving to stop him, screaming at him not to run in, that they were doing everything they could- but he didn’t listen.

He touched the doorknob and cried out in pain as he did, but he managed to open the door without hurting himself too badly.

The house was a sad, smoke-ridden shell of its former self, and Keith had to bite back a sob as he ran inside. He felt that he was about to lose _everything._

He’d scarcely made it to the living room when he heard it- the unmistakable sound of flaming, splintering wood. His head shot up just in time to see an enormous beam fracture and plummet from the ceiling. Survival instincts couldn’t save him now- the beam was far too large to dodge.

Still, he tried.

He spun quickly to the side, but he wasn’t fast enough- the beam caught his right leg from the knee down, so his calf was pinned underneath the burning wood.

Keith let out another cry of agony- he could feel his leg burning through the cloth of his pants. He tried to shake the beam off, but it was far too heavy.

_He was trapped._

Just as he was about to panic, he heard it.

“KEITH!”

“LANCE!” He cried out. Just his lover’s voice provided him with clarity, and he agonizingly pushed the beam off with his bare hands- he could feel the blisters forming already, but he didn’t care. Lance was alive, that meant he still had a chance! “Hold on, I’m coming!”

He tried desperately to stand, but groaned in pain- he was hurt, badly. He could feel warm blood trickling in a steady stream down his leg, and he could feel the places where his skin had made contact with the fire.

He couldn’t stand, but he’d be damned if he was giving up now.

Coughing with each and every inch he moved, Keith crawled steadily in the direction of Lance’s voice. Surely there was still a way to get them both out of here. Surely they could both still survive this. The entire idea of Voltron was founded on the spark of _hope._

Surely that couldn’t all be in vain.

“Keith!”

Lance’s voice was softer, more raspy now. The smoke must have been getting to him too. But at least Keith could see him now.

Lance looked much worse than he did.

He was trying to use the arm of what used to be their couch as a support to stand, but he was getting weaker by the second. He was coughing over and over. Keith hated having to see him in so much pain, but he knew there was nothing he could do to help.

Lance coughed one last time before his legs gave out on him and he fell to the ground. Keith then collapsed at Lance’s side, breathing erratically and stifling coughs into his hand, his blood staining what was left of the living room carpet red.

“Keith, what the hell are you doing here?! You’ve _doomed_ yourself, you dumbass!” Lance looked angry, but he was crying.

“Lance,” Keith coughed softly, his eyes shining with tears as he realized what Lance had already accepted. There had never been any hope of him escaping their former home alive, and now Keith was going to suffer the same fate. They were both going to die here. This was it. “I had to try to save you.”

“Oh, _mi amor_ …” Lance murmured, pulling Keith to him and trying not to gasp when he saw how much blood was on his leg, but he knew it didn’t matter. Nothing else mattered, except that they were together.

They held each other as the fire ravaged their home, the memories they’d created together, the air growing more hazy with each shallow, shuddering breath they took. They knew it was only a matter of time before the flames would reach them, but they didn’t fight it. They were too far gone to fight it.

It was a while before Lance spoke up again.

“Keith?”

“Hmm?”

“...I have something to confess…” Lance murmured, his voice more raspy since the last time he’d spoken.

“Yeah?” Keith winced as he shifted his badly bleeding leg. He knew if he looked down he’d see nothing but angry third-degree burns glaring up at him. “What… what is it?”

“I… I remember the bonding moment…”

Despite the pain he felt, Keith could have laughed, save for the thick, foul smoke clouding his lungs. “Is this really the best time to tell me?”

Lance cracked what could have once been a smile, but it came out more like a pained grimace now. “Yeah, it is. You know why?”

“Why?”

“Because I love you.”

Keith smiled back as best he could. “I love you too.”

“So… this is how it ends, huh? We’ve saved the entire universe on nothing more than hope and perseverance, and it’s a _fire_ that takes us?”

Keith thought of his dad, and how he had died, all those years ago. Ironic how a firefighter could be taken down by the one thing he’d fought his entire life. “You’d be surprised.”

Lance closed his eyes, pressing his forehead against Keith’s. “Well, for what it’s worth, I wouldn’t want to die cradled in anyone else’s arms.”

Keith sighed, watching Lance carefully, memorizing every detail of his still-gorgeous face. He kissed him on the head, the nose, the lips, before letting his eyes shut as well, pulling his husband as close as possible. “Me either,” he whispered. “And I promise you I’ll never leave you alone again.” Whether Lance heard him or not, he would never know.

Some say there is a certain beauty in destruction, even if that destruction is one of life.

That night, in the burning house, the one that contained all of Keith’s and Lance’s happy memories of the life they’d worked so hard to build together, the roof caved in, leaving nothing but a gaping hole and the last remnants of brilliant sparks in its wake.

It was shocking, horrifying... _radiant._

All the firefighters could do was watch with stricken stares as the house was entirely consumed.

Though there were no survivors that night, in their final seconds together, Keith and Lance created their own little infinity- one where they could hold each other endlessly and never let go. For that sliver of time, they were each other’s stars, their moons, their very galaxies, even in spite of the raging inferno.

And for them... that was enough.

**Author's Note:**

> This is so sad Alexa play despacito. But in all seriousness, I’m sorry about this guys, I wanted to write something to cheer myself up after season 6, but it turned into this instead :(


End file.
